Click on the picture below to see his powerpoint presentation.

Mr. Ryan made his presentation about "Farming the deep blue : The potential for offshore aquaculture". Demand for fish is increasing rapidly worldwide and capture fishery yields have peaked, leaving aquaculture to make up a large shortfall over the next 30 years. Much of this will need to come from marine finfish cage farming but there is a shortage of sheltered deep water sites inshore. New operations will therefore be forced into more exposed areas offshore. The problem is that existing offshore farms are relying on technologies which were successful inshore but are not at all suitable for the more hostile environment offshore.

New technologies and methodologies are therefore urgently required but many of the novel cage types currently available need further development work and supporting technologies for these such as feeding and harvesting have hardly been addressed at all.

Recognising the enormous potential for offshore aquaculture it is proposed that a new international strategy of cooperation on RTDI should be undertaken so that the way can be paved for the advent of large scale exploitation of the offshore zone. This talk is a taster for a major international conference on FARMING THE DEEP BLUE to be held in Ireland the 6&7 October 2004. (info for this conference : moore@bim.ie or see the event calendar of Aquamedia )